We are a POLL of the Rhythm Nation: Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

aw man. How did I not see Bimble's 07 poll? I'm such an idiot. :(

haha i'm sure i'll vote 'miss you much' or 'love will never do (without you)' but halfway perversely tempted to throw 'get the point? good, let's dance' a vote.

not that i'd take any individual janet album over off the wall (over thriller is conceivable) but i do think control-rhythm nation-janet-the velvet rope is a better four album run than off the wall-thriller-bad-dangerous, to an extent that i don't even think it's challopsy to say so.

Yah thats a killer run

Love will never do

took me years to reach the Lonely-Come Back to Me- Someday is Tonight sequence.

aw man. How did I not see Bimble's 07 poll? I'm such an idiot. :(

Was about to say ... we didn't poll this?!

In 1990, I would've picked "Escapade" in a heartbeat.

Now it's either "Rhythm Nation" or "Alright." Or maybe "Miss You Much." Or "Love Will Never Do."

Kind of an "if you love one song, you love almost all of them" album.

"Come Back To Me" is one of the best songs on the album!

"Love Will Never Do" has always been massively overrated IMO *arms crossed*

I thought so too; now I think "Miss You Much" is.

Only song I think is just a flat out misstep is "Black Cat."

Was just stutting down Nicollet Mall this morning to "Love Will Never Do."

One of her few solos songwriting credits on a RAWK number.

Come Back to Me is so rad

The string arrangement at the end is heart-stopping.

I should poll Jam-Lewis ballads that follow the "Human" template (my favorite: Alexander O'Neal's "Sunshine").

title track is really addictive - my biggest thing is that I can't separate the song from the choreography now, as soon as I hear it I see the shoulders and those pivots and UGH she was so unstoppable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSs3mUTE4DI

The title track is one of the all-time great sample-into-song transformations.

"Escapade"'s bridge is gorgeous.

Any song where they yell out "Minneapolis!" has a leg up.

"Alright" was the only single my top 40 station didn't play -- a fortunate thing, cuz I discovered it by playing the album over and over.

Back then, I loved "Escapade" so much that the last few minutes of "Alright" played like the houseguest (... heh) that refused to leave.

Tough call between Love Will Never Do and Escapade. Went with the former because I get the feeling it gets a bit less love.

Come Back To Me is up there too. Her prettiest ballad?

obvy i love JJ and this album is a personal fave of all time. after much deliberation i am going with "miss you much" because her vocal lead-in to the second chorus brings actual tears to my eyes every time, also the ~bridge~.

i love this song, album, and human so much forever

so there's actually 12 songs on this. the interludes are deceiving.

with interludes by our side
to break the album length line

my guinea pig Hastings wants to vote for "love will never do (without you)," he flips out and runs around squeaking every time the beat drops in that song. it is known to all who know him as his favorite song.

was recently at a party where "love will never do" came on and everyone basically reacted like Hastings.

this album meant so much to me as a pre-teen trying to grow into a tuff independent full-fledged teen. janet was also trying to grow up, you know?! the self-titled album also played into that, cause it was super adult and represented the end of that transition.

i had a solo in chorus when i was 9 singing the title track from rhythm nation. no one else knew the words and i was quite incensed

i think i will have to go with "rhythm nation" because I am a sap but "miss you much" and "alright" are excellent, too.

i had a solo in chorus when i was 9 singing the title track from rhythm nation. no one else knew the words and i was quite incensed

― purp (roxymuzak), Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:43 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you were otm also omgggggggggggggggg how amazing.

feel like rich juzwiak has an excellent classification of the stages each janet album represents in her coming of age

no one at my elementary school was incited to stand up and join voices in protest to social injustice so it was ultimately a fail xp

went with "come back to me" over "escapade"

this is her most diana ross sounding album

<3 roxy YESS

I had to vote title track, but there's no wrong answer really.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

smh at this low turnout

Edit.

The title track is one of the all-time great sample-into-song transformations.

a lot of which was ripped from :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNmuVREvnBs

1 minute 25 seconds in.

and yes, AoC sampled it as well, but the use with the beats/cut-ups etc is very very similar.

"State of the World" and "The Knowledge" needed more votes

Wow, never heard of Age of Chance.

yeah .. its pretty hard to think that jam and lewis hadn't heard 'Crush Collision', after all, the AoC album was out quite a while before RN.

I can't believe I'd forgotten about Age of Chance

well, i have not mentioned them on ilm for a few months, so thats understandable djp ..

I liked when you sampled "RnB Junkie"...

ha ..

I want to believe

i think i stated my case clearly enough in the dedicated 'mark e' thread ...

but we digress .. back to the brilliance of janet and her sample ripping production crew

yeah, I know. I just saw you post in a janet thread and couldn't resist.

~ ilm vs a 'like button' ~

i somehow missed BOTH of these poll threads at the time o_0

think would've gone with "miss you much" - this is a weird album to listen to front-to-back though, it starts strong then kinda sags and then finishes really strongly. title track is obv classic but the other standouts for me are polar opposites - "black cat" (which invented "free your mind"! i have a bizarre soft spot for r&b/hair metal fusions obviously) and "come back to me", which sort of points ahead to the lush silken gorgeous balladry she really perfected in the '90s

plies and ne-yo broke 'come back to me' in a way that somehow can never be fixed tbh

hm i'd not heard of age of chance either. nothing i'm finding to read about them makes any mention of art of noise which seems uh, pretty absurd

yeah .. 'crush collision' was a bit of a one off (alongside their 'kisspower' remix that predated the cut-n-paste excess of coldcut).

prior to this sample excess groove for their debut major label album, they were a lot more noise/guitar based.

however, they, along with various others of the time, discovered the joys of looped samples, and tDR artwork ...

hence 'crush collision'.

which they then used to open their live shows with, aided by dj powercut, aka noel watson, cutting up the 'leeds, detroit, berlin, new yourk' chant to excess.

oh and geoff from the AOC talked re this sample lift here :

http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/interviews/irlm_vs_aoc.html

i'll shut up now ..

[/end of plug .. ]

Good reappraisal of the album by Marcello folded into a Tina Turner review.

I never noticed "West End Girls" creeping into the outro of "Someday is Tonight"!

Me neither